Tag: East London Painting Prize

  • East London Painting Prize shortlist announced

    OMG I Love You by East London Painting Prize fainlist Marie Jacotey-Voyatzis
    OMG I Love You by East London Painting Prize fainlist Marie Jacotey-Voyatzis

    A shortlist of 23 artists has been announced for this year’s East London Painting Prize.

    Work by the artists is to go on show at Bow Arts Trust’s new artists’ studios The Rum Factory, a Grade II-listed former rum warehouse in Wapping that used to be part of News International’s printworks.

    The prize winner will announced on 13 May, and will receive £10,000 in cash and a solo exhibition at the Nunnery Gallery in Bow.

    The East London Painting Prize, now in its second year, celebrates the diversity and talent of artists who live or work in East London and is run by Bow Arts Trust and The Legacy List.

    Last year’s winner was Nathan Eastwood, whose winning painting, Nico’s Café, was an Edward Hopper-inspired image of an elderly man eating alone in a greasy spoon café.

    One of the judges Lizzie Neilson, Director of Zabludowicz Collection which supports the prize, said: “We had to be hard-nosed to get to this succinct group but I think there is a strength is showing the best of the best. Seeing these excellent paintings in the flesh was a fantastic experience and left me invigorated, as the breadth of painting practice in the East End of London is just staggering.”

    Rosamond Murdoch, Director of Bow Arts Trust’s Nunnery Gallery, added: “East London is a hotbed of talent and the painters shortlisted for this year’s prize are a distillation of that quality.”

    The shortlisted artists are:

    Hackney

    Michael Ajerman, Steven Allan, David Caines, Anna Freeman Bentley, Andrew Hladky, Kate Lyddon, Cathy Lomax, Lee Maelzer, Judith Rooze, Mimei Thompson

    Newham

    Peter Donaldson, Marie Jacotey-Voyatzis

    Redbridge

    Luke Rudolf

    Tower Hamlets

    Hannah Brown, Cyrus Shroff, Caroline Walker, Willem Weismann, Emily Wolfe, Vivien Zhang

    Waltham Forest

    Benjamin Doherty, Katrin Maeurich, David Ben White, Josephine Wood

  • East London Painting Prize opens for entries

    Last year's winner: Nathan Eastwood collects his prize
    Last year’s winner: Nathan Eastwood collects his prize. Photograph: Bow Arts

    Applications for the East London Painting Prize are now open, giving East London artists the chance to win £10,000 and a solo exhibition at the Nunnery Gallery in Bow.

    Artists have until 8 March to submit their applications, with the prize open to both established and emerging artists of any age living or working in the boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Havering, Waltham Forest, Barking and Dagenham and Redbridge.

    Now in its second year, the East London Painting Prize aims to explore and celebrate the diversity in painting practices and different approaches to the medium.

    Last year’s winner was 41-year-old Nathan Eastwood, who said winning the prize had been a “huge boost”, allowing him to spend more time painting and producing new works.

    His winning painting, Nico’s Café, was an Edward Hopper-inspired image of an elderly man eating alone in his local greasy spoon café, in grey and white tones.
    Rosamond Murdoch, Gallery Director at the Nunnery, which is part of Bow Arts, said: “It’s never been harder to be an artist in London.

    This prize offers the chance for us to gather a world class panel of judges to select the best in contemporary painting today and challenge the art audiences of London.”

    The winner of the East London Painting Prize will be announced at a group exhibition featuring work from shortlisted artists to be held in East London this spring.

    www.bowarts.org/elpp

  • East London Painting Prize winner announced

    'Nico's Cafe' by Nathan Eastwood
    Winning painting: ‘Nico’s Cafe’ by Nathan Eastwood

    We all know how a prize works. Someone has to give it. Someone has to win. And then someone says thank you, and several more say thanks anyway. And the whole thing self-perpetuates thus.

    They’re fun for the judges and the winners alike –  quality is defined and rewarded, and for the weaker-willed among us, a gold standard is set. 

    But beyond that, who cares? One look at the East London Painting Prize exhibition catalogue left you wanting more of everything –  yet we’re left with just one winner.

    The shortlisted works – more than half of which come from Hackney painters –  were not, as the name suggests, a testament to East London as a place, but to a remarkable range of artists who happen to be based here.

    Among the finalists were images of a burqa-clad mother pushing a stroller in green-gloved hands, a woman with the face of a monkey clutching a tree, masterful plush country landscapes and several geometric abstractions. Cathy Lomax, director of Transition gallery, submitted a watercolour of a woman gazing hesitantly back through a half closed door, while Ben Jamie’s shortlisted work is an evening sun-lit landscape, complete with violet foliage and deep metallic blues. 

    The prize is awarded in the spirit of the East End-born painter and champion of emerging artists Jack Goldhill and in this, its inaugural year, the prize went to a documentation of the oft-unnoticed minutiae of a changing neighbourhood – its humanity defined and celebrated by the unremarkable incidents of everyday life.

    It began like this: 41 year-old painter Nathan Eastwood, who works from a studio on Cambridge Heath Road, stopped by his local greasy spoon for a “good solid lunch” of steak pie and mash, and snapped a covert photograph of an elderly man having a quiet meal alone, which was to become the winning painting, Nico’s Cafe – one of Eastwood’s many representations of “incidents of everyday life in East London,” he says. 

    The grey-and-white work is an homage to the café scenes of great American realist, Edward Hopper, but with malt vinegar and ketchup bottles instead of jaunty hats and coffee cups. And without the colour. Since finishing his MA, Eastwood has turned his back on pigment in favour of shades of black, white and grey. 

    As if describing a person, Eastwood describes his winning work as “very antagonistic. It was a real fight to get it the way I wanted it.”

    Eastwood’s scene of moody mundanity is charming, but the draughtsmanship in some of the other paintings was astonishing.

    For his efforts Eastwood will receive a £10,000 cash prize and a solo show at the Nunnery Gallery on Bow Road. With part of his bounty, Eastwood plans to expand his studio and travel to Holland to see Van Gogh’s early works in their natural habitat.

    The selection implied that the judges prefer the right atmosphere to technical accomplishments, which answers my question about whether the East London Painting Prize is about celebrating East London or celebrating its best painters. This year, it seemed to be the former.

    But that’s neither here nor there.

    For those of us watching from the sidelines, the value in this exercise lies in the ensemble. To the Jack Goldhill Charitable Trust – thank you very much for that.

    Nathan Eastwood’s solo show will take place at the Nunnery Gallery, Bow Road, E3 2SJ in October.